Generally, the inventive technology disclosed herein relates to methods and apparatus for providing supplemental support for items used in manual tasks. More specifically, this inventive technology may involve providing such supplemental support in a compact and variably adjustable manner. The inventive technology may be particularly suited for use with hand tools such chop saws or miter saws.
In many everyday situations, an individual performing a manual task may require the assistance of some type of support to brace, prop, hold, or otherwise secure an item with which the individual may be working. Countless examples of such types of support may be readily apparent, such as desks, tables, benches, and the like. In some situations, for example as when an individual may be working with an item having a particularly long dimension, a supplemental support may be desired. Such kinds of supplemental support may include, for example, the foregoing supports just described, or perhaps even a more specialized kind of supplemental support, such as a sawhorse or a stand. In these situations, it may be typical to support one end of the item having a particularly long dimension on a primary support, and a second end on a supplemental support, thereby possibly providing a more stable support for the item than may be possible with merely a single support.
One field that may commonly involve the use of primary supports in conjunction with supplemental supports may be the construction industry. A particular example of this may be the perhaps widespread use in construction industry applications of hand tools having an integrated work surface. A work surface may be a surface upon which work is performed, perhaps including work such as tasks performed by hand. By the term integrated work surface, it may be understood that a hand tool may have a work surface integrated as part of the structure of the tool itself, perhaps providing an area in which the tool's function may be performed. Examples of hand tools having an integrated work surface may include chop saws and miter saws, for each of which it may be appreciated that a work surface exists as part of the structure of the tool, upon which an item may be placed and sawed. It may generally be that an integrated work surface of a chop saw or miter saw may be raised from the base of the chop saw or miter saw by an order of several inches. Moreover, it may be noted that the work surface area of a chop saw or miter saw may be relatively small in size, perhaps only as large as may be required to accommodate the reach of the saw blade, and in some cases possibly not exceeding about 36 inches square. Accordingly, in order to saw an item having a particularly long dimension, which may often be measured in multiple increments of feet, such as lengths of wood, tubing, pipe, sheet metal, steel, or other materials commonly used in construction industry applications, it may frequently be desirable to use a supplemental support in conjunction with a chop saw or miter saw to additionally support such an item being cut. It may further be appreciated that a desirable aspect of such a supplemental support may be the ability to support the item to be cut at a height level that is even to the integrated work surface of the chop saw or miter saw.
However, current practices in using supplemental supports on construction industry job sites may frequently involve a number of drawbacks. For example, although stands are commercially available for use with chop saws and miter saws, many of these stands may tend to be not supplemental supports, but rather whole supports capable of supporting in one integrated assembly both a chop saw or miter saw as well as the length of an item to be cut. While this type of whole support may afford certain advantages, a significant drawback may be that such supports may tend to be large and bulky. Such size and encumbrance aspects may make these kinds of stands difficult to move around from job site to job site or even from place to place within the often hectic environment of a particular job site. Moreover, these kinds of stands may frequently require involved set-up and break-down procedures between uses, further adding to the time and effort required for use.
Moreover, even in the case of true supplemental supports, such commercially available supplemental supports may exhibit their own drawbacks. For example, many commercially available supplemental supports may tend to be relatively tall, as may be exemplified by most typical sawhorses. Such sawhorses may tend to have a minimum usable height of perhaps two feet or possibly even more. Accordingly, to use such a sawhorse as a supplemental support in conjunction with a chop saw or miter saw, it may be necessary to position the chop saw or miter saw itself on a support of comparable height to the sawhorse. In this manner, it may be seen that the height of such a sawhorse is not coordinated to the work surface of a chop saw or miter saw itself, but rather to the height of the location on which a chop saw or miter saw may be placed. Such locations may include, for example, tables or work benches. Consequently, it may be appreciated that if a location of comparable height to the sawhorse is not available, it may not be possible to use the sawhorse as a supplemental support, because the resulting height differential between the sawhorse and the work surface of the chop saw or miter saw may result in the item being supported at an uneven angle.
More generally, it may be that commercially available supplemental supports are not dimensioned in a way that is coordinated to the work surface of hand tools having an integrated work surface, such as chop saws or miter saws. For example, it may often be desirable on a job site to place both the chop saw or miter saw itself and the supplemental support for a particularly long item on the same level, be it perhaps a raised support area, such as a table or workbench, or be it possibly even the ground. Naturally, it may be appreciated that if the work surface of a hand tool (such as a chop saw or miter saw) is raised from the base of the hand tool by a magnitude of inches, and the surface of the supplemental support (such as a sawhorse) is raised from the base of the supplemental support by a magnitude of feet, then the supplemental support may not be utilized at the same level as the hand tool without perhaps creating an uneven level for the item being supported.
Of course, it may often be that no support of any kind may be readily available at a job site. In such a situation, a user often may use the ground as the area to place a chop saw or miter saw. The user may then be required to find some type of makeshift supplemental support to hold the item being cut, a process itself requiring a degree of time and energy. Such a makeshift supplemental support frequently may be a piece of scrap wood, metal, or brick found at the jobsite and used to prop the item being cut. Because such scrap wood, metal, or brick may necessarily be taken as found, and not specifically coordinated to the height of the work surface of a chop saw or miter saw, the item being cut may be supported at an uneven height relative to the integrated work surface of the chop saw or miter saw. This may result in an uneven cut, premature fracture, or perhaps even a bend in the item being cut. Additionally, after one cut is made, a user may slide the item in a direction needed to make another cut. If the makeshift supplemental support is not stable, as may be the case for stacked scraps of wood, metal, or bricks, such a slide may cause the makeshift supplemental support to slip or collapse. Such instability may result in additional required time and effort needed to stop work, fix the makeshift supplemental support, and resume work. Such instability even may pose a safety risk to the user by creating the misleading impression of a stable support, where in actuality the possibility perhaps exists of a sudden shift or drop of the item while the cut is being made.
The foregoing problems regarding conventional supplemental supports may represent a long-felt need for an effective solution to the same. While implementing elements may have been available, actual attempts to meet this need may have been lacking to some degree. This may have been due to a failure of those having ordinary skill in the art to fully appreciate or understand the nature of the problems and challenges involved. As a result of this lack of understanding, attempts to meet these long-felt needs may have failed to effectively solve one or more of the problems or challenges here identified. These attempts may even have led away from the technical directions taken by the present inventive technology and may even result in the achievements of the present inventive technology being considered to some degree an unexpected result of the approach taken by some in the field.